[Blarg]

I had the same kind of mechanism, and was also very physically active. I found the amount of food I ate was never enough, and I ate gigantic amounts, and frequently. Not even if I were sitting around all the time, but with my level of activity, forget it.

I finally started to gain some reasonable muscle only when I did very little but pure strength full-body exercises and ate so much it was very close to making me want to barf sometimes, and definitely made me feel uncomfortable and kind of freaky a whole lot of the rest of the time.

If you're truly a hard gainer/ultra-ectomorph, besides eating, gaining muscle is about a lot more than working out or being in shape. You have to do a certain kind of work-out and you have to choose being in one kind of shape rather than another. That's one of the tougher things for some of us; you have to not just do the right thing for your goal but limit your other options too. And you may enjoy some of those other things quite a bit or feel they are healthier for you. It's not really the path for everyone, or at any rate forever. You'll have to decide for yourself.